


Ode to a Nightingale

by noowanda



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, M/M, Wolfstar AU, but i'm working on the parallels to the books and i'm rlly liking how it's turning out so far, jily, jily au, so ok hear me out, they're not wizards, this will be a primarily wolfstar fic but you never know what will happen tbh, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 07:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15262401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noowanda/pseuds/noowanda
Summary: 1972. Someone has a secret. Someone is on the run. Someone is in love. Someone is lying.(Marauders AU. The Marauders + Lily are freshmen in college and have all been accepted into Oxford University.)





	Ode to a Nightingale

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first time publishing on AO3 and I am SO PUMPED to be writing again!! It's been way too long and I've been taking my writing too seriously these days, and this is something I've always wanted to write, so we're doing it! This chapter is almost like a prologue I guess? It was fun to write and I hope it's fun to read!  
> xo - noowanda   
> (ps: The chapter titles are just going to be my favorite quotes from the chapter, leave your faves in the comments!)

“I got in!”  
This was not the sort of thing Remus Lupin typically heard in his bedroom on a Monday evening, though he was used to his best friend flinging his door wide open as if it were her own. Remus looked up from his book with a quirked eyebrow. “Elaborate?”  
“Oxford, Remus! I got in to Oxford!”  
Those few words were all it took for Remus’s eyes to bulge, and a grin to split his face. “You’re bloody joking!”  
Lily Evans, his best friend of about ten years, was now properly freaking out like he had never seen, jumping up and down and squealing with delight. Remus swung his legs over his bed and ran to hug her, his grin ever present. “Congrats, Lil. This is amazing. You deserve it.”  
“I know,” she said ever so modestly, smirking at him. It was then that he realized she was holding something behind her back. Almost as if reading his mind, she handed it to him.   
It was a white envelope addresses to Remus John Lupin, postmarked Oxford University. “Lily, you know it’s illegal to read someone else’s mail.”  
“I didn’t open it!” she shot back, appalled. “I just know you’ll get in so hurry up and open it so we can start celebrating. Go on, quickly.” Remus began to make a show of opening his envelope, holding it high above his head so Lily couldn’t reach it, her red head bobbing as she tried to jump to catch it. “Remus Lupin I swear, if you don’t open it right now you’re not invited to my birthday party.”  
“Low blow, Evans,” Remus said with an amused grin, obligingly opening the letter, then hesitating. He handed it to Lily. “I can’t look. You tell me.”  
“You’re such a girl,” Lily said, practically ripping the letter from its envelope. Her smile grew mischievous, then was so huge Remus could swear she had slept with a hanger in her mouth.   
“I’m in, I suppose?”  
Lily then let out yet another uncharacteristically girlish scream, hugging Remus again and jumping up and down. “Oxford, Oxford, we both got into Oxford!” she chanted so loudly if Remus hadn’t been looking, he might not have seen the door open.  
Hope Lupin's head was poking in the doorway. Remus froze when he saw her, and Lily, noticing his stillness, turned to see what had stopped his celebrating.   
Remus’s mother had been especially… well, we’ll say ‘protective’ of Remus lately. Remus would be more inclined to say ‘overbearing’ or ‘autocratic,’ but Lily would sooner have his head. “She’s just looking out for you,” Lily would say. “I know you can’t help it, but she’s always worrying about you. She’ll let it slip from time to time. Says she feels like she can’t take care of you.” To which Remus would reply he didn’t need somebody to take care of him, that his condition wasn’t that serious, and to that Lily would say “Oh, yes, you try telling that to the mother of a sick child, an only child no less––“ at which point Remus would normally cut her off.  
There was a short silence, during which Remus was afraid his mother would start getting haughty about Remus jumping and Lily letting him get too excited. However, Hope offered quietly “Oxford, Oxford, you both got into Oxford?” Lily nodded energetically. Soon, his mother and Lily were pulling Remus into yet another embrace, and it wasn’t long before Remus joined in the chants, not quite recalling a time he had felt this happy.

~ Elsewhere ~

“So then I say to McKinnon, oi, you’re a fat load-a talk about my forward when you’re the one supposed to be blocking my shots! The nerve of her! Brand new to the team and trying to give the captain advice on how to play a position he’s played for, what––?”  
“'Ten years?'” Sirius continued in his best impression of his disgruntled best friend. “'I swear, next time I’ll chuck’em off the team and have you replace em, Padfoot. No, I’m serious.' And that’s when I say, ‘No, I’m Sirius,’ and we have a right laugh and eat dinner, so let’s fast forward to that, shall we mate? I’m starved.”  
James blinked at him. “I’m sorry. Did you just… give me attitude?”  
“Well, I right reckon I did, how do ya figure?”  
At that moment, Euphemia Potter walked through the archway into the kitchen. “If you boys so much as put another toe into this kitchen without taking off your shoes, I’ll wring your ruddy necks,” she said in passing, not even giving them a sideways glance.  
James sputtered at her, flabbergasted. “You haven’t even seen if we have shoes on or not!”  
Euphemia sniffed the air. “Ah, yes. I thought I smelled you trying to wriggle your way out of this one. Shoes off. Now.”  
Sirius snorted, pushing his shoes off and sitting them outside on the porch. “Your mum just schooled you, mate.”  
James was utterly pouting now, loudly stomping onto the porch and pulling off his shoes, then trudging back inside and flopping into a chair at the dinner table. “I feel betrayed and hurt by the both of you.”  
“I reckon Sirius and I have just gotten used to the routine by now, sweetheart,” said Euphemia, and Sirius saw as she tossed a wink in his direction. Sirius chuckled and looked at his friend, whose hand was resting on his chin and his lips were, as Sirius could have guessed, in a resolute pout. Sirius’s eyes flickered to the table.  
“Hold the ruddy phone,” he said, making a dive for the envelopes, reading the backs of them and raising his eyebrows.  
“What? What is it?” Sirius wordlessly handed James the envelope addressed to him. “Oh.” James audibly gulped, and said something to Euphemia, but Sirius was too busy scanning the words on the back of his envelope. Addressed to him. Postmark…   
“Earth to Padfoot!” Sirius jumped, turning to James as if just realizing he was there. “Think we might open em together?”  
“Right, right, yeah,” Sirius said, his heart thumping as he and James both lifted the flaps of their envelopes.  
“Oh, really boys? You couldn’t wait for Fleamont to––?”  
At that moment, James’s father walked through the door, his eyes going towards James and Sirius, then incredulously to his wife. “You were going to––“  
“I had just stopped them, they haven’t seen––“  
“Can we open them now?” James said impatiently, and both his parents nodded obligingly. The best friends looked at each other. “Shall we?”  
“On three?”  
“1, 2…”  
The two both pulled out their letters, gasped, then looked at each other.   
James spoke first. “I’m in, are you?”  
Sirius’s face could have split in two. “Yeah I’m in!”  
Whooping and yelling ensued as the boys embraced one another, then each received hugs and words of praise from Euphemia and Fleamont.   
Though they had both wanted to get in for different reasons, Sirius and James were officially enrolled at Oxford, and Sirius couldn’t speak for James, but he couldn’t quite remember a time he had ever felt this happy.


End file.
